Hey guys, any of you applied to Mesaba yet?. What's the deal with that letter from the MEC yesterday asking about if we had and the result of it?.

I meant email form MEC.

I only got the Thanksgiving Kool-Aid e-mail from the MEC. Are you asking about the preferential hiring thing? There was an e-mail send out by the furlough chair, but I have heard from a Mesaba guy that there is no such thing as a preferential hiring agreement between Mesaba and Comair.

Yesterday, the furlough chair sent an email to all furloughs asking if they have applied and what the results have been. There is some sort of communication between MECs regarding the so called pref-hiring. From personnal experience I can tell you this, there is no preferential hiring at all. That's hogwash. At least from their HR Dept is concerned.

I agree. I tried and got the more qualified apps rejection letter. Mesaba is the same company that has been turning down people with 1000's of hours in type and giving them the exact same more qualified letter too.

They are a bit funny about thier hiring practices.

Sorry, I will spell it out - but keep in mind my original post was a question directed at someone else. I am assuming that offering voluntary furloughs, etc. is out of the companies control because alpa will not negotiate. I am assuming that for the obvious reason - the company was willing to negotiate with IBT. Maybe because IBT does not have a personal vendetta against DS?

You think this ALPA group is reasonable? I don't. I see them dropping an ASAP program for no good reason other than to try to make mgmt look bad. Talk to some of the old union safety guys - find MS and see if he thinks that was the right thing to do. That's why I think alpa has some blame here - if IBT could do it, why not them?

I assume we accept that the company is not allowed to do these things without alpa (a contract), right? So if alpa won't sit down and negotiate for them, how can the company do these things? They can't. That is my point. Therefore, I reject this idea that this particular instance proves the company is not interested in saving costs.

I wouldn't place too much stock in what ALPA can or can't do in regards to negotiating. Quite honestly I don't believe it would matter either way. While the "mexican standoff" does seem childish we know that 1) Comair management absolutely does NOT stand up to Delta's unraveling of our airline and our crewmembers QOL, but rather just cowers under threat of job security and 2) our pilot group voted once for a pay freeze (no joy on growth) and TWICE for paycuts (no joy there either). If you want to credit the IBT for something I say kudos to them for giving our management the middle finger which lead to the final TA 03-2007.

When I look at Comair, its management and the labor groups the Stockholm Syndrome comes to mind. We're all hostages in this game but at the end of the day we sympathize with our captors as we start fighting with each other. Perhaps it's time for us to pool together and give our captors a kick in the nuts.

The glass is half full...

Are they still doing construction in employee parking at CVG?

no it is finished, what a waste of money because soon it will be empty.